Robert Mugabe is heading for a landslide victory in a one-candidate election boycotted by the opposition and condemned as a sham.

The 84-year-old Zimbabwean dictator is expected to be sworn in on Sunday, official sources said, after claims he will defeat opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai by a huge margin.

However, African and local election monitors said there had been a low turnout on Friday. Witnesses and poll observers said people had been forced to vote in some areas and their ballots were checked by Mr Mugabe's Zanu-PF officials.

Mr Tsvangirai won the first round of the election on March 29 but pulled out of the run-off and took refuge in the Dutch embassy because of state-backed violence saidn to have killed almost 90 of his followers.

His name was left on ballot papers after electoral authorities refused to accept his withdrawal from the race last weekend following a campaign of terror waged on his Movement for Democratic Change supporters.

An unnamed official said: "The tallies are indicating that despite the wishes of our detractors and the propaganda of our enemies, the voter turnout was very big and that we are going to see a landslide victory."

MDC spokesman Nelson Chamisa said the Zanu-PF planned to pursue a crackdown to decimate his party. "They stole this election, now they are going to spill more blood."

He added that security forces planned to launch "Operation Red Finger" to track down people who abstained. Voters had their little finger dyed with ink.

Meanwhile, a UN resolution calling for tough action against the Mugabe administration could be introduced next week.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Britain and the US could present the resolution to the UN Security Council as early as Monday.

She said: "It is time for the international community to act It is hard to imagine that anybody could fail to act given what we're all watching on the ground in Zimbabwe."

Dr Rice added: "There needs to be a really strong message from the international community about what has happened there."

A proposed resolution is being drafted and officials said it would probably be circulated informally over the weekend before being presented to the full council.

The US currently holds the rotating presidency of the Security Council.

Dr Rice declined to specify what will be in the proposed resolution but said there "has to be a deterrent effect from the international community at this point to (halt) further intimidation, further violence against the population."

"We will have to look to what other measures are available both to the US and the international community more broadly to send a strong message of deterrence," she said, adding that the US would "use everything in our power in terms of appropriate sanctions."

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